


Full of Stars

by inlovewithnight



Category: Angel: the Series, Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-01
Updated: 2005-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:11:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another girl in a box on Serenity; another chance for Fred Burkle to walk with heroes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full of Stars

The world narrowed down to heat and agony, tearing her from the inside, dragging her into the dark.

 _“Wesley, why can’t I stay?”_

Too much pain, too much dark. She flung herself away from hands that were hurting her with their gentleness and gathered her breath to scream.

Darkness. Silence.

She was breathing so fast that it hurt her throat, and on the heels of that thought she realized that the rest of the pain was gone. There was no raw ache of being melted alive- in fact, she was _cold_. She was shivering, and it was dark, and as the rasp of her panicked breathing eased, she realized that it wasn’t silent after all. She could hear muffled male voices.

“Mal, I thought you said there were five crates.”

“There should be.”

“There’s six. And this one ain’t marked like the others.”

The second voice let loose a burst of words that she didn’t understand, sharp-edged and lilting and foreign-familiar at once. “I’m developing a real dislike for unmarked boxes on my ship. Open it up.”

There was a squeal of metal on wood, and she tensed as a streak of light appeared over her head. She looked up as the dark peeled back, revealing a man’s face. He stared down at her in shock, then jumped back, shouting in that not-quite-alien language. “Ruttin’ _hell_ , Mal, there’s a girl in there!”

“Another girl in a box?” A third voice, and if she wasn’t shaking so hard, she’d sit up and try to put faces with them. “What is it with girls in boxes around here?”

A new face appeared over her, tight-jawed and angry. She opened her mouth to apologize- although she still wasn’t quite sure what she’d done, or how, or why- but yet another man stepped up next to him. It must be kind of crowded out there. He was dark-skinned and white-haired, and he, at least, was smiling.

He reached down to take her hand and helped her to her feet. “Hello, Fred. Welcome to Serenity.”  
*****  
“This isn’t _fair_.” She sounded whiny and petty and childish, even to herself, but at the moment she didn’t care. She was sitting on the floor of a spaceship ( _spaceship_ ), hundreds of light-years ( _and just plain old years_ ) from herself, and the man who’d opened the box was aiming a large, ugly gun at her. If ever there was a situation where childishness was justified, this was it. She already had her knees drawn up to her chest and her face buried in her hands; if she thought she could get away with it, she would’ve held her breath till she turned blue.

The dark-skinned man, Book, rested a sympathetic hand on her arm. "Life isn't fair," he murmured. She peered at him through her fingers.

"Am I in a coma? Or a fugue state, maybe…are you a figment of my subconscious? Books _were_ awfully important to me, after all."

He chuckled and pulled his hand away. "I assure you, Miss Burkle, you're quite awake."

"See, that’s the tricky thing." She closed her eyes and remembered the agony of an hour before. "I was dying of some demon-mummy-fever, and then I woke up here, in a box. We have some issues of temporal mechanics to deal with."

He smiled at her, all paternal and kindly. Professor Seidel used to look at her that way, so it really wasn’t surprising that it just made her suspicious. "The universe wasn't done with you yet, that's all. Your talents are needed here."

"What do you know about it?” She got to her feet- carefully, unsteadily; she was still a bit wobbly from her little jaunt across the space-time continuum. “I’m guessing you’re not a vampire, because those nice people over there with the guns are still alive. And probably not a demon, because they usually don’t care much about the universe’s grand plans. But I’m also guessing that you’re not human. We can play 20 Questions, or you can just tell me.”

"I am a Guide."

"A guide named Book? You’re a guidebook?” She blinked.

“An agent of the Powers That Be, an intermediary for contacting mortals.” He smiled and reached out to touch her again, and she took a step back. No making friends here on the crazy side of things, not till she knew what was going on. He folded his hands in his lap. “Angel had a Guide for a brief time, you know. Did he ever mention Whistler?”

“No.” She tucked her hands away in the sleeves of the sweater the girl with the nice smile had given her. _Kaylee_ , that was her name; she was standing at the far end of the room now with the rest of the crew of this ship, studying Fred and Book with a varying mix of interest and fear. Oh, and anger, don’t forget anger- especially from the one named Mal. He’d even taken the sweater exchange personally. “It might’ve been nice if they’d let me read the guidebook _before_ they brought me here, you know.”

"I understand it's confusing," Book murmured. She rolled her eyes and hugged her arms tightly around herself, making a firm promise not to start crying.

"What are _you_ doing here, anyway, Mr. Guide? Just waiting for me?"

He smiled faintly and looked over at the crew. "You've never met a group more in need of guiding."  
*****  
Kaylee not only kept Fred from freezing, but also seemed to be the only one who didn’t want to see her starve. “Maybe we can save the whole execution question for after we eat,” she’d said, turning a sweet smile on Mal, whose grumpy, brooding air was starting to remind Fred of Angel. “Even convicts get a last meal, Captain, and we don’t know for sure that she did anything wrong.”

Now they were all sitting around a big wooden table, picking at bowls of what Kaylee just called protein. Well, Fred was picking. She was pretty sure the tree-bark enchiladas in Pylea had tasted better than this.

She’d finally figured out that the other language they kept muttering to each other in was Chinese. Since her grasp of that tongue was limited to ordering takeout- oh, she needed to stop thinking about starchy food if she was _ever_ going to finish this protein stuff- she sat in anxious silence throughout the meal and tried to figure out everyone’s name.

Book finished his explanation of the actual history of the universe and the role of the Powers. The response was a resounding silence.

"So you ain't a Shepherd." That was the man with the guns, who'd almost smiled when she introduced herself as Fred. Jayne meeting Fred; any other day, that would be funny. "You ain't even human. You lied to us." Definite flash of hurt feelings, there...what was it about the tough guys that made them carry their emotions right up on the surface? Vicious hunter with an open face, just like Connor-

 _Connor_.

She choked on her protein, scrambling to her feet and striking out blindly as she suddenly became aware of an entire portion of her mind that had gone from foggy to agonizingly clear without her even noticing. Suddenly she remembered, she remembered _everything_ -

"Ruttin' hell, she's having a fit," someone shouted, and heavy hands tried to restrain her. She lashed out and scrambled away from them, grabbing her head and crying out in horror at what had happened, what they'd _done_ , the way they'd all just forgotten...

Gentle hands settled on hers; not trying to hold her down, but just making contact. She trembled under them, but they didn't move, and after a moment she opened her eyes. The skinny, wild-haired girl, River, who didn't have a job on the ship that Fred could fathom, was kneeling in front of her, smiling softly.

"Oh, good," she heard Jayne mutter. "The crazies are makin' friends."

"Not crazy," River said, squeezing Fred's hands softly. "Not now, anyway. There's too much- all the walls coming down- but she walks between worlds. She can take it." She glanced back over her shoulder and glared fiercely at Book. "You owe her answers, Preacher-man. You ripped her from her home." Her eyes flicked back to Fred, puzzled and compassionate. "Oh- from love?"

Fred stared at her, too stunned to speak, and the girl just smiled and squeezed her hands again. "I like math too," River whispered, like she was sharing a secret. "And Kaylee loves to build things. We can all be friends."

"You could if she was staying," the captain said curtly from his place by the door, "which she ain't."

"Mal," protested the beautiful dark-haired woman, whose place on the ship Fred also didn't quite understand. She was going to need a flowchart and a map to figure things out around here. "You can't just throw her out, this isn't even her universe if what they say is true-"

"Nobody tells me what to do on my own ship, not even those Powers That Be of hers," he snarled, glaring at the woman, Book, and Fred in turn. "If they're so interested in her, they'll take care of her themselves."

"Don't worry, Inara," Book said with a small, cold smile. "Not even Captain Reynolds can deny the will of the Powers."

"That’s not exactly a comfort," Fred said, finally finding her voice and getting unsteadily to her feet. That probably short-circuited Mal punching Book in the mouth, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing as far as she was concerned. "I’ve never seen any proof that the Powers care about humanity at all beyond screwing us over."

"You too, huh?" That was the blond one, Wash, who gave her a kind smile. She returned it as best she could, considering that all she wanted to do was curl up and cry.

"The Powers have plans for you, Fred," Book said. "You have a vital role to play- perhaps the pivotal one in humanity's salvation."

"Well, I never asked for that," she told him, and thought she saw a flicker of sympathy in the captain's eyes.

The only armed woman among them- and what was it with the women of this time being ridiculously beautiful?- cleared her throat. Fred felt a smile tugging at her lips after all at the way everyone came to attention at the sound. Clearly, this Zoe only spoke when she had something to say.

"Can't do anything till we put into port on Talbot anyway, Captain," she said. "Might as well not make any big decisions until then."

Mal stared at her for a moment, then nodded, and the look between them gave Fred a fresh stab of pain as she thought of Angel and Cordy. She closed her eyes.

"Are you all right?" She didn't recognize the voice, so it had to belong to the pale, skinny boy who'd hung back giving off palpable "don't notice and/or blame this trouble on me" vibes since she'd woken up in the box. Kaylee had waved in his direction and mentioned that he was a doctor. "Captain, I should take her to the infirmary and look her over, make sure she's all right."

"Must be the nicest part of bein' a doctor," Jayne muttered, rolling his eyes, "gettin' to drag all the girls off for a good goin'-over."

"It's my job, and I certainly didn't mean-" Simon stuttered heatedly.

"I was dying," Fred said flatly, and all eyes were back on her. Jayne's laughter cut off in his throat. "Before I...left home. Maybe I did die- it hurt so bad, and everything went dark, and then I woke up here."

"Did you bring plague onto my ship?" Mal demanded, glaring again. Didn’t anyone ever tell him his face might freeze like that?

"No," Book said calmly. “Don’t worry, Fred. Your mind and soul are entirely intact.”

She was really starting to hate his air of unruffled calm. Everyone else around here was fully ruffled, _bedecked_ in ruffles, why couldn't he do the same? "What about in my own time? What happened there? Did I just disappear?"

“Whatever happened then,” the doctor cut in, “can be discussed later. Right now, I’m going to invoke my authority as medic-” he hesitated as Mal raised an eyebrow “-such as it is, and insist on an examination.”

She opened her mouth to protest, then caught the meaningful look he was giving her. He was trying to give her a reprieve, a few minute to catch her breath.

“That’s probably a good idea,” she said, managing a weak smile to let him know she understood. “Thank you.”

He glanced at the captain, who gave a sulky nod of permission. “This way, Miss Burkle,” the doctor murmured, guiding her with a gentle hand on her shoulder.

Behind them, River smiled and rolled her eyes. “It’s all going to be fine, you know,” she said, looking pointedly at Mal. “You shouldn’t get so upset about things. She walks with heroes.”  
*****  
The doctor, who asked her to call him Simon and who reminded her very much of the freshman physics students she'd tutored for bar money before she got sent to Pylea, poked and prodded and pronounced her demon-mummy-plague free. After she got dressed again, she stepped into the hallway to find Jayne, leaning against the wall and looking sulky.

"Captain told me to escort you to your bunk," he said, dragging the heel of his boot across the floor grate. "Which is shuttle two, since we're fresh out of beds around here. Tell you what, it used to be a hell of a lot quieter on this ship before we started takin' in strays."

"I'm sorry if my being yanked across time and space against my will is an inconvenience to you," she snapped, glaring up at him, and to her surprise, he grinned.

"Well, it ain't all bad. Keeps life from gettin' boring, I guess. You're kind of a spitfire, ain't you? Little like Kaylee, only without all the googly eyes at the doc."

It took her a minute to puzzle through all that and realize that he was being friendly, and also giving her some interpersonal context for the crew. "Kaylee and Simon? Really?"

"You don't get it either?" He grinned wider, and she laughed despite herself.

"Well, he's perfectly nice, but he looks like he's, what, fifteen? The whole Doogie Howser thing never did it for me."

He stared at her in brow-furrowed blank puzzlement. "Huh?"

"Never mind." She glanced up and down the dark, empty hall. "Is everyone else in bed already?"

"Yep. Doc took his sweet time giving you that going-over." He drawled the last words lasciviously, and she rolled her eyes.

"He was thoroughly professional."

"Yeaaah." A world of meaning in that drawn-out word, which she had no intention of puzzling out right now. Circles within circles on this ship.

"I want to talk to Book," she said, and Jayne nodded.

"He's with Kaylee, settin' up the shuttle for you. Said he figured you'd want to get your talkin' done tonight." He started down the corridor and she hurried to fall into step beside him, thankful for those years of scrambling to match stride with Angel and the others.

"It might be more like yelling," she said grimly, and he grinned again.

"Liked you givin' him hell before. Folks don't do that often."

She glanced up at his face. Still surprisingly readable, like Connor's- no, not ready to process those memories yet. Focus on the now. "It hurts you that he lied, doesn't it?"

He blinked. "Don't _hurt_ , really...I mean, I should've guessed his story wasn't quite right. Too clean and shiny."

She nodded. "The truth never is."

"Damn right." He went up a small flight of stairs into what she presumed was a shuttle. Book sat in a chair with folded hands, apparently waiting for her.

"Miss Burkle. I presume Dr. Tam gave you a clean bill of health?"

"Peachy and keen, considering that I'm a couple hundred years old." She glanced around the little space- no other chairs, so she perched on the edge of the freshly made-up bed. The sheets smelled like jasmine.

Book glanced at Jayne, who was still leaning against the doorframe. "Thank you, Jayne, I believe Miss Burkle is in for the night now. We're just going to do a bit of talking."

Jayne looked over to Fred, and it took a minute for her to realize that he was waiting for confirmation. "Goodnight," she said, giving him a little half-smile. He nodded and vanished back into the ship.

Book smiled at the empty door. "I think you've got yourself a bodyguard."

"If the Powers have taken an interest in me, I need one." She eased back across the bed until she could lean her head against the wall. "Why don't you just put a spell on all of them to make them act how you want?"

"Free will is of utmost importance to the Powers, Fred."

She laughed out loud. "Which is why they checked with me before they brought me here. Right." She stared up at the ceiling. "Why _am_ I here, Book? What's this mysterious threat that only I can vanquish?"

"I can't tell you."

She glared at him and wished she had one of Wesley's guns. _Wes_...no time to think about that, either.

"You have to see for yourself, Fred."

"I think I like it better when you call me Miss Burkle. It doesn't make such a presumption that I like you." She probably should feel guilty for being such a brat, but she just didn’t yet. "It's a demonic threat, right? Or at minimum, supernatural?" He nodded. "Then shouldn't you be calling up this era's Slayer?"

"The various Slayers of this time have troubles of their own to deal with," he said softly, and she detected real sorrow in his eyes. "Governments have been trying to harness the power of the Slayer since the beginning, but this one has come closer than any before. The Potentials..." He trailed off, staring into space, and Fred kicked the edge of the bed sharply to bring him back again. "Anyway. This is out of the Slayer's purview."

"But in mine. So it's magical science." She rubbed the heels of her hands against her temples. "Well, fine, but I can't face a supernatural threat alone. I need to find this era's Champion."

He smiled again, that enigmatic one that she wanted to slap off his face. "What makes you think you haven't already?"

Oh, this had to be a joke. "The only people I've met around here are a bunch of smugglers and _you_."

"I am merely a voice of the Powers."

"And they're...space pirates. I think. It's hard to tell."

"Anyone who chooses to fight the darkness is a Champion, Fred."

"They don't fight the darkness, they fight the government. They _live_ in the darkness."

"Maybe they just need to be given the chance to step up. They might amaze you once you show them what’s really out there.”

"Why do I have to do any showing? You’re the one with the connection to the universe, not me." She pulled the pillow over to her and curled up on her side, staring at the wall. "When will I see this...thing for myself?"

"Soon," he murmured, and the sorrow in his voice sent a shiver up her spine.

They were quiet for a long time, but he didn't move to leave. Probably he could sense that she had one more question left. Probably he knew everything. She hated the Powers and their agents so very much.

"When this is over," she said finally, "when I've done what you want me to do...what will happen?" She swallowed. "Will I die?"

"I can't answer that, Fred."

"Well, if you can’t, who can? You brought me here, you took me away from everything..." Tears were running down her face. She still didn't look at him. "I don't want to die. I didn't before, and I still don't, even though I've lost everything. Is that the Powers, too? Are they inside my head, making me want to live even in the middle of nothing?"

"Get some sleep, Fred," he murmured, and she jerked her head away from the gentle hand that brushed across her hair as Book left the shuttle. She curled up tighter in the sudden dark and cried herself to sleep.  
*****  
When she woke up in the morning, Jayne was standing outside her door again. "You really are my bodyguard," she said, looking up at him. "Or is it my keeper?"

He shrugged. "Supposed to take you to breakfast. Then Kaylee's gonna show you the showers and stuff."

"That sounds good." It had taken her forever to figure out the toilet on the shuttle. The things Star Trek never showed her. "Breakfast, especially."

He smiled a little and started off down the hall. She noticed that he shortened his steps a little for her. "It's more of the same we had last night. Noticed you didn't eat much of that."

"I'll get used to it," she said flatly. "What’s the thing Angel used to say- a body can get used to anything, even being hanged."

Jayne shot her a puzzled glance. "Angel?"

"My boss. My friend. Back...home." She stumbled a little and he paused until she caught up.

"The one that River said you were in love with?"

"What?" She tripped again. "Oh, no. That was...someone else." Wesley's face appeared in her mind, eyes soft, smiling at her- and then she saw _other_ Wesleys, lying in hospital beds and carrying Angel through the Hyperion doors and taking an axe into the basement to behead Lilah Morgan.

"You all right?" Jayne asked, and she realized she was standing frozen in the middle of the corridor. "You went all pale. You've gotta eat something. Come on, we're almost there." He put his hand on her shoulder and steered her the rest of the way, then up the stairs into the mess.

River and Kaylee took over from there, dragging her to the end of the table and bringing her a bowl of protein mixture. The beautiful woman, Inara, was sitting with them, and Fred felt even more tongue-tied and clueless around her than she had around Cordy.

Mal even gave her a half-smile and refilled her coffee cup when it ran dry, so maybe she wouldn't get left behind wherever they docked next. She indulged herself in a moment of hope.

She finished her protein glop and coffee, and was offering to look at a malfunctioning generator with Kaylee (two technically-inclined heads were better than one, after all) when an alarm went off and Wash's voice came over the intercom, strained and anxious. "Captain, we've got Reavers!"

Chaos.

Jayne was on his feet, wild-eyed as a panicked horse, and Mal and Zoe had instantly gone grim and tense. Kaylee bolted from the room, Inara vanished in the direction of her shuttle, and Simon gathered River protectively close.

Fred sat at the table, waiting for someone to explain what Reavers were.

Mal took an intercom device off the wall. "Can we make a run for it, Wash?"

"They're too close, Captain. They came up out of nowhere." The pilot's voice was thin and unhappy. Whatever else they were, Reavers were definitely bad.

"Shut her down, then," Mal said, dropping the intercom. Fred looked from him to Zoe to Jayne, found naked fear in every set of eyes, and upgraded her assessment to _very_ bad.

"Fred, come with me to the bridge," Book said calmly. Everyone turned to stare at him.

"Is this what you want me to see?" she asked, following him out of the room, the stunned-silent crew a pace behind.

"Part of it."

"You're gonna let her feed us to the Reavers?" Jayne asked, his voice actually cracking with disbelief and fear. "Christ, I'll shoot her first!"

"She has no connection to the Reavers," Book said, guiding Fred to Serenity's front windows and pointing at the massive, dark ship.

"Wash, are we powered down?" Mal's words were clipped, angry. Fred didn't want to know what facial expression went with that voice.

"They will pass," Book murmured. "Look closely, Fred."

"Oh, so now you can guarantee their behavior? What happened to free will?" She leaned closer and squinted at the passing ship. "I don't know what I'm looking for. What are Reavers, anyway?"

"They're men who went too far into the blackness and got themselves changed," Zoe said harshly.

"They're people?" Fred took a step back and turned to Book in horror. "You brought me here to kill people?"

"They aren't people any more," he said as the dark ship glided past them. "We have determined that for certain. But we aren't sure exactly what they _are_. That's why you're here, Fred- to find out. And to stop them."

She stared at him. The others stared at her. The Reaver ship moved out of view of the windows.

"Oh," Fred said.  
*****  
Mal Reynolds could swear for two full minutes without repeating himself. Fred found that impressive, even if she wasn't sure that half of it was actually real words. The fact that everyone spoke Chinese in the future made perfect sense statistically, but her twilight-of-Pax-Americana worldview didn't quite want to accept it...

Oh. He was yelling at her now. Maybe she should pay attention.

"I sincerely hope you're kidding. Both of you." The captain rocked back and forth on his heels, looking just about mad enough to spit.

"Ruttin' crazy," Jayne growled, and Fred vaguely wondered if she'd set some kind of a speed record for reversing kindly intentions toward her. Of course, it wasn't really her fault, it was Book's, but from the way Jayne was glaring at her, he was in no mood to hear that.

She'd been chased by drokken in Pylea. She could handle a glare from an overarmed mercenary from the future. She forced her attention back to topic- the others were still talking.

"You run from Reavers," Wash said, modeling the concept with some empty coffee mugs left on the table. "You don't follow them home."

"They don't have a home," Mal snapped, and his glare in combination with Jayne's and Zoe's very nearly did give the drokken a run for its money. "They're just beasts wandering around in the black."

"Fine, not a home," Fred replied, trying to keep her voice low and reasonable. "A point of origin. They have to come from somewhere."

"They make more of their own," Simon said, his brow furrowing slightly. "We saw it- the physical and psychological torture-"

"The numbers don't work out." Fred shook her head and sat up straighter, trying to make contact with the glaring eyes and get the people behind them to really hear what she was saying. "Kill an entire ship full of people and only get one recruit? And you said that usually they kill _everyone_? Statistics don't work for entire ships going mad in the black and Reaver-ifying themselves, either- not the exact same pattern every time. They're coming from somewhere. They have to be."

"Up from hell," River whispered, and Simon squeezed her arm sharply. Fred filed the words away in the back of her head; as best as she could figure out, River was something of a seer with an unknown vision-source. Whatever it was, it seemed kinder than the Powers had been to Cordy. River was spared the choice between demonhood and debilitating pain.

"I don't know about the rest of you," Zoe said, dagger-sharp glare never wavering from Fred, "but I'm kind of fond of keeping my skin intact and my guts uneaten. Following the Reavers is suicide."

Jayne nodded so hard, Fred feared for his neck. "I'm with Zoe."

"First time for everything," Wash muttered.

"I don't want to die either," Fred said as reasonably as she could, though she was beginning to think she might have better luck with yelling and screaming. Angel never had to justify his insane plans- he just gave orders. Either this crew was smarter than the staff of Angel Investigations on their best day, or leadership just wasn't Fred's forte. "I can do a protection spell on the ship. Invisibility, unimportance- the Reavers won't even see us."

If he hadn't been so heavily armed and vocally eager to shoot her, watching Jayne turn all the different colors of shock would've been really funny. "She's a witch, too?"

"No," Fred said quickly, "but if Book can find me a spellbook and some supplies...there are still magic shops out here, aren't there?"

"Of course," Book nodded. "The great covens are still intact. Some of the new worlds have even greater natural energy than Earth did."

"Well, good for them." Fred frowned. "I'll definitely need a book. Screwing this up would be very bad. And since this isn't my speciality, I'll need an assistant to balance the energy..."

"I'll do it," Kaylee said calmly. She shrugged as her crewmates turned to her in shock. "My aunt's a white witch on Kettering. I used to help her when I was younger, before I left home. It's just herbs and words and some energy. And it makes you go tingly all over."

Fred bit down on her tongue to hide a smile at the look on Simon's face.

"I enjoy how not one of you has noticed that I have not and will not give permission for this insane venture," Mal said irritably. "Nobody's casting any spells on my ship and we are _not_ following the Reavers back to where they come from."

"Course we are," Kaylee said, and they all turned to stare at her again. Apparently this was more argument than usually came from the mechanic. "Captain, think about it! We can be the ones who stopped the Reavers! We can make the verse safe again! The Powers That Be brought Fred here for a reason, and we can help."

"I ain't out here to be a hero," Jayne said. "I'm here to get paid. No paycheck in helping those Powers."

"That is much, much more true than you could possibly know," Fred said hastily, "but consider it an investment in the future. Think of how much easier it will be for you all to do...whatever it is you do...without keeping an eye out for Reavers all the time."

River looked up, her hair falling away from her face like a parting veil. "Think of being able to sleep unafraid. No more monsters in the dark."

Fred wasn't sure if that was directed at Jayne, or Mal, or everyone, but it made them all go still.

She cleared her throat and smiled awkwardly. "I can probably also find a spell to slow down corrosion in the engine, and keep mildew from growing in the showers."

The ensuing burst of laughter was thoroughly laced with hysteria, but Fred understood the need for that.

"All right." Mal wiped a few tears from his face and stared down at the table. "Can't pass up the chance for a mildew-free shower. And what's life without a risk? We'll try it." He pointed at Fred and she widened her eyes, doing her best to look innocent. "But if I get a bad feeling and we're not dead yet, I'm pulling my ship back, got it?"

"Yes, sir." She did her best to salute, and he almost smiled before he looked over at Book.

"Can you get the stuff she needs on Talbot?" he asked. "We'll be putting into port there in a few hours."

The Guide nodded. "It should all be available in the main city."

"Good." Mal stared at the tabletop again. "Never thought I'd wind up trying to be a hero. That's a young man's game."

"I don't know about that," Fred said, patting his hand. "The greatest hero I've known had at least two hundred years on you, _and_ he was dead. Heroism's a flexible category."  
*****  
It was really too bad that Kaylee couldn't shoot, and Simon _wouldn't_ shoot, and nobody would give River a gun.

Mal had decided that Fred needed a bodyguard on her shopping trip while he and Zoe dealt with the job that brought them to Talbot in the first place and Book was off doing Guidely things. Wash was busy shipside and the other three were out for the reasons she'd noted.

Which meant that she was being trailed by a deeply sulky and surly Jayne Cobb.

All of the rapport they'd established earlier was gone, buried under his resentment of her success in commandeering the Firefly and its crew for her personal mission. That the resentment came from a place of pure, honest terror made her more than sympathetic. She knew about monsters, after all. She understood fear.

The pouting was really starting to get on her nerves, though.

"Where are you gettin' all this money?" he muttered darkly as she paid for a bag of finely ground powder that she devoutly hoped was mandrake root.

"Book gave it to me," she said, tucking the bag away in the carryall Kaylee had loaned her. "Probably he conjured it out of thin air, which, if he does that on a regular basis, will lead to inflation and the devastation of the global economy. Oh, I guess that's not the term anymore, is it? Interglobal. Transglobal."

He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing several times before he finally spoke. "The way you think is a real mystery to me."

"Likewise," she said, stopping to stare at a kiosk display of brilliantly colored silks. "Oh, look."

He gave it an indifferent glance. "Thought we were shoppin' for magic supplies, not clothes."

"Girls always have time to look at clothes, Jayne. I would think a man of your age and presumable experience would know that." She watched with longing as a tall woman wrapped a crimson shawl around herself and began a spinning dance that made the fabric flutter and shimmer in the sun.

"That color would look real pretty with your hair," he muttered, and she glanced at him in surprise. He shrugged. "If we had spare cash for pretties, which we don't. Unless you need somethin' like that to do your spell."

"No. Spells should be performed while naked and smeared with chicken blood, or else while wearing all black, with pentagram jewelry and lots of eyeliner. Didn't you see _The Craft_?" He gave her another blank, puzzled stare, and she winced. "Oh, right. I've got to stop with the pop-culture references, they're useless here."

"Whatever." He shook his head and started off down the street to the next shop on their list. "I guess if you and Kaylee are gonna be runnin' around the ship naked and covered in chicken blood, though, maybe it will be worth gettin' gutted and eaten alive by Reavers."

"I'm not going to let anything happen to any of you," she said, clutching her bag more tightly and hurrying along behind him. She'd done this a lot in high school- found a football player and surfed the wake that formed behind the larger body cutting through the crowd. "None of you asked to be involved in this, you shouldn't have to die for my destiny."

"You didn't ask for it either," he said, glancing back over his shoulder. "Don't seem fair. These Powers of yours...I kinda picture 'em as rich folks, dolled up like Simon and Inara, sittin' around in fancy houses. They got everything and everybody's got to do what they say, 'cause we've got nothin' and can't fight back."

"That doesn't sound too far off," she said softly, stumbling a little on the rough ground. He slowed down a fraction, and it suddenly occurred to her that Gunn would probably get along with Jayne Cobb better than first impressions would suggest. "This is the place...only a few things left on the list, so hopefully this is the _last_ place."

He nodded and shoved his hands in his pockets, leaning back against the edge of the building. "Go on and get what you need. Smell of these places is giving me a headache."

She hurried into the incense haze and hunted down the items she needed, letting an idea worry itself out in the back of her mind. By the time she paid and stepped back into the street dust, she'd managed to convince herself that being friendly and hopefully building up credit against getting shot was more immediate than possibly hurting the feelings of a man who had been dead and gone for at least a few hundred years. _I'm being pragmatic, Wesley_ , she thought as she squinted against the sunlight and looked around for Jayne. _Not inappropriate._

Apparently, the whole point was moot, since Jayne was gone. Panic tightened her throat and her vision went white around the edges. He'd _abandoned_ her? In the middle of the city? How the hell was she supposed to...

"What are you lookin' so panicked for?" came a voice from behind her, and she whirled around to see Jayne, holding two oddly-shaped little food items on sticks and frowning. "Somebody lift your credits?"

"N-no," she said, hand automatically going to her pocket. "I didn't see you, that's all."

"Thought you might be hungry." He held out one of the sticks. Despite the fact that closer inspection confirmed the item's resemblance to a rat, she accepted it. "Now you're lookin' pouty. What?"

"Nothing," she said, rotating the stick slowly and studying the deep-friend creature. Maybe not a rat. Maybe a...small dog? She really shouldn't think about this too hard. "I just was going to ask _you_ if you wanted to go find somewhere to eat, because I have some credits left over...but you beat me to the punch."

He shrugged and bit off the little creature's head. "Wouldn't mind a drink to wash these down, if you're buyin'."  
*****  
She really should've done her honors thesis on the mysterious ability of one drink to turn into three or four. Possibly even five. Damn it.

Drinks had a symbiotic relationship with stories. Lorne had told her all about that, in different words. Jayne seemed to have an infinite stash of off-color, thrilling, and ridiculous stories. Lorne would've loved to get his hands on Jayne to option all those stories...among other reasons...

She winced and crushed that thought out ruthlessly. _Wesley. Sweet, dead Wesley, who loved me more than makes any sense at all._

With startling openness, Jayne told her about how he'd betrayed Simon and River on Ariel.

"Betrayal's a funny thing," she said, blinking rapidly in an effort to focus her eyes through the effects of...more than two...rounds of Talbot whiskey. "I mean, Wesley...my friend Wesley...he kidnapped Angel's son, which was real bad, but he thought he was doing the right thing...there was a prophecy..." She trailed off and clenched her eyes tightly closed, which didn't help her see any better, of course, but stopped the spinning sensation that the blinking had brought on. "Anyway, I'm sure it was just the same with you."

"No, I knew it wasn't right," he said with a shrug. The whiskey was having notably less impact on him. "But with money on the line, and gettin' the fugies off the ship...I didn't much care."

"You care now?" she asked, opening one eye a crack to look at him.

"Ain't gonna do it again, if that's what you're asking." He scowled down at his glass. "Wish I could convince Mal about that."

"Forgiveness is even funnier than betrayal." She cautiously opened both eyes, and the spinning stayed gone, so she left them that way. "I don't know if Angel ever really forgave Wesley...I mean, he said he did, but then he wiped our memories so who knows how he really felt?"

"Wiped your memories?"

"Yeah...re-a-a-lly long story..." She suddenly scrambled upright in her chair, looking around the barroom. "Oh, hell, we'd better get back to Serenity! How long have we been here, anyway?"

"Not as long as you'd think by how sloshed you are," he chuckled. "Not much of a drinker, are you?"

"My mama always said I was a cheap date," she giggled as she fumbled the carryall back onto her shoulder. The way he looked at her cut the laughter off in her throat. She felt a furious heat rise in her face and nearly knocked her glass over with suddenly shaking hands. He casually glanced away, and she tried to pull herself together. Tricky around all that whiskey. _Wesley, dammit, poor mindwiped Wesley, and I would've loved him even without big gaping holes in my brain. Having lust in your heart is still cheating on your dead boyfriend, Winifred. You intergalactic space slut, you._

Jayne didn't ask why she giggled all the way back to Serenity, and she was profoundly grateful, because that probably wouldn't fare so well in the pop-culture translation.  
*****  
Backtracking the Reavers took time. It took what the rest of the crew called a _gorram lot_ of time.

River took a giant sheet of paper, as big as the dining table, and divided it into sectors. Serenity moved purposefully across that grid, pulling Cortex records in each square for reports of Reavers. Only a few things mattered enough to be sifted out of the hysteria and rumors: position and velocity.

Fred and River plotted it all out, one Reaver sighting at a time, studying the directional lines and praying they would converge.

One agonizing sector at a time, and who knew how many reports were lies, or how many twists and turns the Reavers had taken in their hunting?

"Not many," River said. "The mad are remarkably single-minded- or so I'm told." Fred just shook her head and drew another line.

Day after day after day. The farther out they went, the fewer ships and planets they saw, and the fewer reports came up on the Cortex. But the lines were finally converging, in a sector that River solemnly marked with an X.

"That's out past anything," Wash said, staring at the chart. "That's... _wo de ma_ , that's _nowhere_."

"That's the only place they could come from," Zoe muttered, her hands clenched tightly around the back of a chair. "And that's where we're going?"

"The very place," Fred said, scrawling a final set of calculations on the chart's margin. "Guess it'll take us...another week?"

"Do we even have fuel for another week?" Wash demanded, glancing at Mal. "We haven't exactly been working these last two and a half weeks while we gathered all these impressive numbers."

"We'll fuel up at Perdition," Mal said flatly. "Book can comp us for it, and Fred can do her little magic dance while we're there."

"Perdition?" Fred asked faintly. "Couldn't we pick somewhere with a more optimistic name?"

"Perdition's the end of the line," Jayne said from his seat in the corner, as far away from the chart as he could get. "Absolute last place we'll find people that are people, out here."

Fred nodded slowly. "I'll do the spell as soon as you finish filling her up."

"And we'll be invisible?" Simon asked. At her nod, he smiled slightly. "That'll raise a few eyebrows on Perdition."

"We might start a legend," Kaylee said, her smile a little white around the edges. "Serenity, the ghost ship."

Strained chuckles went around the room. "Always wanted the name to go down in history," Mal said.  
Jayne stood up abruptly and headed for the door, pausing to look at Fred and rest his hand on the gun at his hip. "And then we go hunting?"

Her throat too dry to speak, she just nodded. He disappeared down the corridor, and she stared down at the chart without really seeing it.

After their bonding experience on Talbot, she was pretty sure he wasn't going to threaten to shoot her anymore. But there was no denying that he was still terrified, and that he was going to channel that fear into an outburst of violence at the first target he found...and that the rest of the crew wouldn't be more than a step behind him.

She just hoped that whatever they found in sector X was something they could fight without getting them all killed. Powers That Be be _damned_ , nobody was dying for her.  
*****  
Not a week, but nine days. They all stood crammed on the bridge as Serenity moved ever closer to their elusive destination- the far edge of sector X.

Fred stood between Book and Mal, staring at the big windows and hugging her arms tightly around herself. She could feel the invisibility spell humming away at the edge of her consciousness, like a high clear sound at the very limit of her hearing, making the fillings in her teeth sing. Kaylee felt it too, since they'd cast the spell together and both were tied into it good and deep, not being strong enough to separate themselves. It was dangerous, pulling this kind of magic at their nonexistent level of skill. Probably only the fact that Book helped ground them had kept them both alive. As it was, the spell's hum had been driving them both mad for the past nine days. If they couldn't drop it soon, Simon would have to put them both on River's antipsychotics.

The doctor was standing with Kaylee now, one comforting hand on her shoulder. Fred hid a wistful smile and looked at the windows again. Near-certain death lighting the romantic fire; yeah, she could understand that. Maybe she'd been a little hard on Cordy and Connor, before.

It was getting easier, having these layers of old memories and replacement memories and new memories all rubbing against each other in her head. She didn't shudder at the thought of Connor anymore, and if she got another 200 years or so to think about it, she might even forgive Angel.

"I've got something," Wash said suddenly. "Many somethings. Extreme sensor range."

"Let's have a look," Mal said, and Wash hit a few buttons. They huddled around one of the flat-panel monitors, bumping heads in their haste, and Fred irritably wished for the giant viewscreens of the Starship Enterprise. She wouldn't have objected to a Holodeck and a few phasers, either.

The image was fuzzy and small. "Wash?" Mal asked.

"Ships, Captain. Dozens of ships." The pilot hit a few more buttons, and the image cleared a little. "They're parked in kind of a half-circle around a central point, which is giving off a _hell_ of a lot of energy, all over the spectrum...another minute or two and I should be able to pull up a rendering of it."

"Is anyone alive on those ships?" Simon asked. Wash studied his readouts for another moment and shook his head.

"None of them are moving or putting out any kind of energy. They're just sitting."

"That don't make sense," Mal muttered, looking from the monitor to the window, where the derelict field was still a distant blur. "Where are the Reavers?"

"Not here," Kaylee said in a wobbly voice, "which means we can drop the spell, right?" Simon squeezed her shoulder gently.

"They're out hunting," Zoe said, and Fred nodded, tapping the screen with her fingertips as her mind skipped and jumped its way to an explanation.

"If somehow people are being turned into Reavers here, it makes sense that it wouldn't always work out the same way." The screen blinked and refreshed itself with a new, closer view. "The process of, um, Reaverfication is one of animalization, right? Maybe these ships didn't have an alpha to establish order, and the crews tore themselves apart."

"Lucky we've got you, Mal," Inara whispered, but the joke fell flat in the paralyzed bridge air.

"Keep us well back from the outermost ships, Wash," Mal said. "I don't want whatever infected them to get to Serenity."

"No objections whatsoever," Wash muttered, his eyes glued to his instrument panel. "I think I can pull up an image of the central point, if you want."

"Please," Fred said, and the screen blinked again.

Fred had always considered it a blessing to have a sort of photographic memory. If she concentrated a bit while reading a book, she could later pull up a perfect mental image of the pages. It was marvelously handy for pop quizzes in high school and college. Right now, though, it felt like a bit of a curse.

She'd seen this, in one of Wesley's massive leather-bound books. The illustration had been just about the size of the image on the monitor, elegantly sketched in black ink. A small note at the bottom had indicated that it was an "artist's interpretation."

Someone should call the artist up from the grave and tell him he'd interpreted right.

"What is it?" Kaylee asked, her voice a hoarse, frightened whisper.

Fred had to swallow twice, but her voice came out clearly. "It's a Hellmouth."  
*****  
"I've never heard of one not being anchored to the earth," she repeated for the fourth time, staring down into the cup of coffee Mal had pressed into her hands. "I had no idea they could just...float."

"So it's a hole in reality?" Zoe asked, her brow furrowing slightly. "It cuts across dimensions?"

"Specifically, right into the nastiest ones, the hell dimensions." She took a sip of the coffee, not caring that it burned her tongue. "The energy it's letting out...you thought it filled up the spectra your sensors pick up? On the magical scale, it's ten times worse."

"That's what's making them," River said matter-of-factly. "Radiation leads to mutation. It makes things change."

"Cities were built on the Hellmouths of Earth," Book objected. "There weren't any Reavers."

"The Earth had its own energy field," Fred mumbled, still staring blankly ahead. She needed to think this through, to work the problem, but she'd never expected this and she was so tired. "Humans are...were...part of the Earth's system, so we were shielded from the warping energies."

"Hopefully, we're far enough out that they can't reach us," Inara said anxiously. "I don't want to be mutated, thank you."

"If anyone starts drooling or going savage, I'll back us up some more," Wash said. "Unless it's Jayne, because how would we tell?"

"Shut up," Jayne growled, eyes never wavering from Fred. "How do we close up a Hellmouth?"

She shrugged helplessly.

"I thought they brought you here because you're the only one who can figure it out," Mal said, anger creeping up in his voice- or maybe it was fear. Why were they all tangled up in men, all the damn time?

"The only way I've ever heard of a Hellmouth being closed was in Sunnydale, by a Slayer," she said. "She literally collapsed it- and all the other ground around the town." She closed her eyes and tried to remember all of Spike's cryptic references to the event. "I'm not a hundred percent sure I understand how, but it involved setting a vampire on fire with an amulet from an evil law firm."

"If we want lawyers, we've got to go all the way back to the Core, and I ain't gonna spend three months on this," Mal said. "What can you do with what we've got here?"

"I don't know!" Fred shouted, throwing her mug at the wall. Simon ducked and Kaylee's mouth fell open in astonishment. Fred had done her best to be a trooper about this whole thing, but she was finally at the end of her temper. "I'm not a witch and I'm not the Slayer! I'm a physicist! I deal with string theory, not..." She trailed off as River started laughing.

"String theory," Fred repeated, staring into River's dancing eyes. "Portals. Oh."

"Strings run through all dimensions," River said, grinning merrily. "Each one at a special vibration. All of reality wound up on the spool."

"We'll have to cover all parts of the spectrum," Fred said dubiously. "Magical, electromagnetic...lots of radiation...I mean, we're talking nuclear bomb force, here."

"We're surrounded by treasure chests," River answered. "Ghosts like to share, if you listen to their stories."

"What in the rutting hell are you talking about?" Jayne snapped in frustration. "Swear to God, we need a translator for these two when they get off and running."

"I think I can close the Hellmouth," Fred said, grinning back at River. "But I'm going to need a bomb."

"Oh, more than one," River said quickly, and Fred nodded.

"You're right. At least...four, you think?"

"Just where are you going to get the goods to build a bomb, or four?" Mal cut in, staring at them like they'd proposed closing the Hellmouth by gutting and eating Inara.

"Y'all do salvage, don't you?" Fred asked, shrugging. "We're surrounded by empty ships. Let's go scavenging in the graveyard."  
*****  
"I'm confused about one thing," Wash said, easing the shuttle up alongside another wreck and tapping in commands to sweet-talk it into opening the airlock.

"You're way ahead of me, then," Fred replied, shooting a wary glance at the clock. Not knowing how long it took the Hellmouth energy to do its thing, they only ventured into the derelict field for an hour at a time. "I'm confused about dozens. But what's yours?"

"You're going to set off bombs inside the Hellmouth," Wash said slowly, smiling as the dead ship obediently turned its controls over to his waiting hands. "What's your guarantee that that's going to close the hole instead of tearing it wider open?"

"River and I were up all night doing the math," she said, glancing longingly at her untouched bed. "As long as the explosions are in rapid enough succession, and _just_ within the event horizon, the interdimensional string vibrations should cause a reversion to baseline space. Entropy, you know?"

"Oh." Wash blinked and settled the shuttle up against the ship's docking clamp. "Okay, then."

"I don't think Captain Reynolds likes my plan very much," she said idly, waiting for the pressure to equalize and the door unlock.

"Well," Wash said dryly, stepping up next to her and holding up the makeshift Geiger counter Kaylee had rigged up for them, "you _are_ proposing to build four bombs that can blow up spaceships...in the cargo bay of his spaceship."

"Who would've guessed that Jayne knows so much about building bombs?"

"I assume that's rhetorical." The door hissed open and they stepped over into the stale air of the dead ship. "What are we looking for here again?"

"Zoe says this is the kind of ship that used to haul radioactive waste. The pods must be sealed, since the Geiger's not going crazy at us, but they should also be labeled...I'm hoping for plutonium." They hurried down the corridors, mindful of the clock ticking in the backs of their minds. She averted her eyes from lumpy piles in the shadows that might or might not answer to the description of "bodies."

"Has Book said what happens to you when this is over?" Wash asked suddenly as they entered the vast hauling bay. She stopped and looked at him. "I mean, is he going to send you home, or will you stay here?"

"I don't know," she said after a moment. "He hasn't said." No need to confess that that was the question that would've kept her up all night even if she hadn't been doing math with River. "Why?"

"Oh, no reason," he said, walking over to check the row of pods on the far wall, labeled with brilliant signs urging caution in English and Chinese. "Just...would it really be so terrible to stay here? We've got some decent people around."

"You've all been wonderful," she said sincerely, going to check the pods on the other side of the room. "And it wouldn't be terrible, just...this isn't my time." She stared blankly at the labels for a moment before remembering to read them. "All of my friends, my whole life...it's back there. My boyfriend."

"We've got boys here, too," Wash said neutrally. "I mean, if you do stay...you've got new friends, and we can help you build a life, which can include boys. I'm just saying."

"I'm not thinking about that," Fred snapped, kicking an old hand-truck out of her way. "I love Wesley."

"Wesley's been dead for hundreds of years."

"Not to me!" She blinked hard at sudden tears and the sick clenching of her stomach. "It's only been four weeks."

"Some part of you knows." Wash frowned at another pod. "Deep down. The part that thinks about propagation of the species...it knows."

She forced a laugh. "Who said anything about propagating?"

"Well, Simon and Kaylee are sure _thinking_ about it, as you know perfectly well. I've seen you and River giggling." She shot him a grateful smile for backing off a pace, which promptly vanished at his next words. "And I'm pretty sure it's the idea in Jayne's head, the way he's been looking at you."

Her mouth fell open and she turned away, too flustered to find something clever to say. "You're suggesting  
I...propagate with Jayne?"

"Well, I actually I actively discourage it, because God knows we don't need him to reproduce...but that deep-down part of you has noticed him, Fred. And if you stay here, if Book can't get you home...life will happen, even that part of it. If you'll let it." He shrugged.

She cleared her throat loudly. "I've, um, found the plutonium."

"Great." He came over to stand behind her. "Let's get it back to the shuttle and head out. Our time's almost up."  
*****  
The Fantastic Four, as she'd dubbed them- another joke nobody laughed at- sat cross-legged in a circle in the middle of the cargo bay. Fred solemnly laid out the parts Jayne and Kaylee had collected with Inara's shuttle. "Perfect. Let's make some pipe bombs."

"That won't take out a whole ship," Kaylee said, tossing a length of pipe in the air and catching it.

"It will if there are five of them wired to the ship's nuclear core," Jayne said, taking the pipe away from her.

"You found a nuke ship? Shiny. Too bad we have to blow it up, I'd love to get my hands on one of those..." Kayle studied the pile of parts. "What do I need to do, Jayne?"

He shrugged. "Put the thing in the thing and give it a half-twist to the left."

"That is not doing wonders to make me feel better about this," Mal shouted down from the catwalk.

"Stop hovering, you two," River called, her hands flying confidently over the bomb pieces.

"Don't blow up my ship."

"Or yourself," came Simon's anxious voice. "River...Kaylee, please, keep an eye on her."

"You worry too much, Simon," Kaylee said, looking up with a broad grin. "You too, Captain. We're all right. Jayne knows what he's doing."

"Don't let that touch the other thing," Jayne said, pointing at the half-finished device in River's hands. "It'll be real bad if you do."

River nodded in perfect understanding. Fred sighed and glanced at the objects arranged around them- bits and pieces of the larger bombs they had to build next. The big nasties that would take out a ship without help from a nuke core, and would throw out energy along different parts of the spectrum, wide and dissonant enough to set the strings vibrating wildly, until they reset themselves to normal space in self-defense.

 _Or destroy the universe._ She sighed slightly and picked up another pipe.

"When are we going to load them up with magical energy?" Kaylee asked, a wary tone in her voice. Fred couldn't blame her- channeling power into the bombs to add magical spectra into their assault on the strings was going to leave them both drained and weak as kittens.

"If we get them all built by tonight, we'll do the magic in the morning," Fred said slowly, clamping the end of the pipe into place. Jayne took it out of her hands and gave it an extra twist, the metal creaking in protest. "The boys can place the bombs while we sleep all afternoon, and then in the evening we'll set the autopilots and give it a try."

"Ain't a _try_ ," Jayne muttered, nodding approvingly as River held up a completed device. "This is _it_. Hey, Doc," he shouted, glancing up at the catwalk, "your sister's real good at this."

"You have no idea how much I didn't need to hear that."

"So, Fred," Kaylee said a few minutes later, as the two of them wired an old escape-pod battery up to a barrel of chemicals, "tell us about Earth-That-Was."

Fred frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Just..." She shrugged. "You know. What was it like? I mean, of course it had to have atmo and sunshine and water and all that, but..."

"Oh." Fred was quiet for a minute watching the wires under her hands.

"Don't let those cross," Jayne said, reaching over to correct her fingers. "Tell us about where you're from."

"It was called Texas," she said slowly, picking up a screwdriver and bending over the work to hide her face. "Flat...it just stretched on out to forever, and the sky...at night, you wouldn't believe the sky."

She talked for a few hours, about the Southwest and the Rocky Mountains, and what she knew about Australia, South America, Mt. Everest. Haphazard information, and she wasn't sure if it was all accurate, or if that even mattered. Probably not.

She told them about the Pacific Ocean, and Los Angeles, and somehow that turned into telling them her life story, while they casually clamped and wired and soldered enough explosive force to take out several blocks of that long-gone city.

They were appalled by the story of Pylea, and very much approved of taking vengeance on her professor. Jayne nodded in satisfaction when she described Charles' breaking Seidel's neck and tossing him into the portal. "But he ought to have backed you up from the start," he said. "You find out somebody wronged you like that? Don't waste no time waitin' on the law."

She just shrugged, not wanting to disturb the fragile peace she'd made with that day, and kept talking. The Beast, Connor, Jasmine- she spun out the story piece by piece, enjoying the thrill they clearly took in it. Every moment had been terror and pain at the time, but maybe it was a good story after all.  
*****  
And then she got to the Wolfram & Hart deal, and she started to falter. Their reactions didn't help.

"He took your memories?" Kayle was pale with horror. "He let them get into your head? That's horrible!"

"Thought you said he was a good guy." Jayne shook his head, revulsion clear on his face. "Don't sound like it to me."

"He did it for his son," Fred said feebly, tightening a final bolt and staring down at the last bomb. Her throat hurt from all that talking...or maybe just their choice of topics. "It was all to save Connor."

"People will do strange things for their families," River said seriously. "A biological adaptation to ensure genetic survival. But they shouldn't have gone into your mind."

"In a way, I'm kind of grateful," Fred admitted, to herself as much as to them. Testing out the impact of the words on her own heart. "If Angel hadn't done that...Wes and I probably never would have gotten together, even for the little time that we had."

"Well, that just means you _shouldn't_ have been together," Kaylee said, shaking her head fiercely and glancing at Jayne for confirmation. "I mean, Fred, you were manipulated into being together- it wasn't even really you-"

"It was me," Fred insisted, staring down at her own clenched fists. God, it was hard to find the words for this even for herself, much less to explain it to them. "It was just a...filtered version of me. Me wearing sunglasses."

"Partial perception," River said, tilting her head to the side and studying Fred quizzically. "You saw the best in each other."

"I still knew about his flaws," Fred corrected, "and he knew mine, but I guess just the most...glaring examples were screened out. And looking back now, with both sets of memories? I _needed_ that filter, because without it, I wouldn't have _let_ myself be with him. I'd be the same woman, and he'd be the same man, and we'd still love each other, but I would've held myself back. I would've thought too much and just talked myself right out of it."

"Too much thinkin' causes a world of trouble," Jayne said, rolling a wrench between his fingers and watching it contemplatively. "Look at you and your doctor, Kaylee. Wasn't it all his _thinkin'_ that kept you two from _kissin'_ for so long?"

Kaylee blushed, but smiled. "Yeah."

"And these days, you're keepin' his thinkin' to a minimum, am I right?"

"Careful, Jayne. Keep your mind out of the gutter." Kaylee giggled, shooting a half-guilty glance at River. "But yeah, I see what you're saying."

"The way I see it," Jayne said, and now he was looking at Fred with something intense and questioning and...meaningful in his eyes. "When it comes to that side of things, folks need to just quit thinking and concentrate on feeling. Follow what feels good."

"Sometimes doing what feels good can get people hurt," Fred said, a little more sharply than she intended. Kaylee looked from Fred's face to Jayne's, her mouth falling open a little as understanding dawned in her eyes. "Other people can get hurt bad when somebody just decides to feel good. It's selfish."

"The dead feel nothing," River said, tracing her fingers over the smooth metal body of one of the bombs. "They don't get confused, like the living."

"River," Kaylee said, getting awkwardly to her feet and still looking back and forth between Jayne and Fred. "We'd better get you to bed. Simon's probably worried."

"You two are just going to keep me up all night anyway," River said flatly, staring up at her friend. "The walls are _very thin_ , Kaylee."

Jayne didn't even laugh at that, or the furious blush on Kaylee's face. He was still staring at Fred with that damn meaningful look in his eyes. She wasn't an idiot or a child, she knew what that look was offering, but the men of her native time had been trained to be a great deal more subtle than this, and...

"All the dead really want is to be remembered, Fred," River said, getting to her feet and taking Kaylee's hand, tugging her toward the stairway. "The behavior of the living is of little consequence. They have an infinite capacity for understanding."

"Good to know," Fred said stiffly. "Good night."

The two girls vanished, and it was very quiet in the bay for a few minutes. "Well?" Jayne asked finally.

"I'm thinking." She scowled at the floor and furiously scratched at some long-set stain.

"What did I tell you about thinkin'?"

She scrambled to her feet without grace or dignity and paced in a tight little circle, finally turning to look at him. He was still sitting on the floor, arms braced behind him and legs casually stretched out. He looked up at her, blank-faced, but his eyes still glittering with that damned unsubtle _meaning_.

"I can't guarantee that I won't think about Wesley," she said, folding her arms across her chest.

He grinned. "I can."

Her jaw dropped and she laughed despite herself. Men! Apparently some things were hard-wired to that Y chromosome and would _never_ change, and one of them was unbelievable cockiness in matters of the, well...

He had gotten to his feet and moved close to her, running one hand up her back, and she decided to blame that for her brain's sudden retreat into junior-high humor. "Your bunk or mine?" he asked, and God help her, that unsubtle promise had moved into his voice, turning it into a smoky rumble that shorted out half of the logic receptors in her brain.

Half of them were still working, though. "Are you kidding me? After what River just said about thin walls? The shuttle, please."

"Good." He moved the hand from her back to her shoulder, brought the other one up to brush against her cheek, and she shivered. Calloused, work-roughened hands, like the boys back home in Texas. He would've fit in well with those boys from her youth, she realized suddenly- drinking beer, racing cars down by the river, shooting prairie dogs on the weekends. He could've been one of those boys.

"You all right?" he asked, a puzzled grin on his face.

"Yeah," she said, shaking her head to clear the ghost of dust and blue skies. "Fine. Great. Let's do this."

"Now that's what I like to hear," he said, and _this_ grin was distinctly naughty as he caught her around the waist with both hands- God, he could almost span her whole torso that way, and didn't _that_ just do wonders for a girl's opinion of her figure- and tossed her over his shoulder as effortlessly as a sack of grain.

"You're going to carry me off and have your way with me?" she asked acidly, addressing the back of his head. She gripped his shoulders tightly to keep her balance, but she could tell he wouldn't drop her. "I guess that answers the big question- the cavemen win."

"Huh?" He carried her up the stairway and turned toward the shuttles. He wasn't even breathing hard. This was all starting to make her feel like a midget.

"Never mind." He set her down outside the shuttle door, his hands remaining steady on her waist, and she took a minute to readjust her hair and clothing, glaring up at him through her lashes. "Now, I assume things haven't changed too much in this process since my day?" She took a step closer to him and rested her palms against his chest, feeling his heartbeat. "Things still, um, fit together the way I remember?"

He grinned down at her and slid his hands from her waist around to rest solidly on her ass. "If you get lost, I'll point you in the right direction."

"Oh, thanks." She rolled her eyes, but the fact of the matter was that his hands felt pretty nice and she was getting the distinct impression that he knew exactly what to do with them, and it _had_ been a very long time since she'd had a decent roll in the hay...hundreds of years, in fact, and..."If I remember correctly, it starts like _this_." She stretched up on her toes- why did she always wind up with guys who were so damn _tall_?- and kissed him, not bothering to keep it sweet and gentle like nice girls kissed back home. No time for that around here, and it wouldn't impress him anyway.

When the kiss ended, he grinned again and started taking small steps forward, guiding her back up the steps and into the shuttle. "I don't usually let girls do that."

"Then they're silly girls for letting you make all the rules." His hands slid back to her waist and she tensed herself just before he picked her up and tossed her back onto the bed.

"Caveman," she said pointedly, fumbling with the zipper on Kaylee's spare coveralls. "Neanderthal."

He just laughed and started unbuckling his belt. "Big words. Didn't I tell you twice now to quit thinkin'?"

"Yeah, you did." She slid farther back on the bed to make room for him as he kicked his boots off. "Ooh, shoes off, I _am_ getting special treatment."

"Let's make that stop _talkin'_ , too," he muttered, tugging his shirt off over his head.

"Stop thinking, stop talking, start feeling good," she muttered as he helped her out of the coveralls and her t-shirt, and then proceeded to devote his attention to her bare skin. "Got it."

It was not awkward fumbling sex, like her first few college boyfriends; nor was it polite, orderly sex like the rest of them. Not giggly, passionate, friendly sex like she'd had with Charles, or proper, English, romantic sex like she'd imagined she'd have with Wesley. Jayne was, after all, very much _not_ any of those men.

This was to-the-point, down-to-business, get-'er-done sex. He had a goal in mind and was single-mindedly mowing down everything in the way of reaching it. There was something to be said for a man who did his job thoroughly and well. Every motion of hand or body or tongue had a purpose- not that he was stingy, good God no- and that was to get her off, so he could get off in turn, and maybe sometimes all that soft-focus slow-motion romantic stuff was overrated anyway.

"You know," she mumbled in the sweat-soaked afterglow, "I have to be awake and functional and casting spells in just a few hours."

"Yep," he said, rolling over on his side and fumbling on the floor of the shuttle for his pants.

"That would be a hell of a lot easier if I was sure I'd be able to _walk_."

He laughed and looked sideways at her as he tugged the pants up into place and stepped back into his boots, gathering the rest of his clothes up into a messy bundle. "If you can't make it down to the cargo bay, I'll carry you."

"Oh, yeah, that won't look at all suspicious." She rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. He ran one finger up the sole of her foot, and she kicked at him, twisting helplessly on the sheets. "Very poor design," she gasped around her giggles. "One little set of nerve endings that can put the whole thing on the fritz."

"If I knew you were that sensitive down there, I woulda done the whole thing different," he said with a flat-out dirty grin, and she pulled a pillow over her face to muffle her laughter. "Maybe tomorrow night."

She pulled the pillow down just far enough to peek at him, the laughter choking off in her throat. "Tomorrow night we could all be dead."

"Don't talk like that."

"It's true. I could destroy the universe." She pulled the pillow entirely off of her face and hugged it against her stomach. She was suddenly very cold, and only half of it was from the sweat drying on her skin.

"Think the universe is bigger than one person's plan."

"I've got the Powers That Be pushing me, remember?" Her smile didn't have any humor in it, and she dropped it when she saw the disturbed look on his face. "I'm sure everything will be fine."

"Yeah." He took a few steps toward the door and looked back at her. "See you at breakfast?"

She nodded, hugging the pillow tighter. He nodded and left. She stared up at the ceiling.

Magically charging those bombs was going to take a lot of effort. She should get all the sleep she could. But it was kind of hard to sleep on the night before the possible end of everything.

Part of her wished Jayne had stayed, just to have something to hold on to. The rest of her was glad he left, because she wasn't sure she wanted him to see her cry.  
*****  
That was made moot the next day, when she literally could not stand up after the spellcasting. She sobbed helplessly into his shirt as he carried her back to the shuttle and tucked her away under the blankets. Zoe hurried in with a bowl of soup and a glass of water that was probably thoroughly laced with something from Simon's infirmary. She lay there shaking and weeping with exhaustion as Jayne and Zoe snarled at each other about whether or not to give her a shot of whiskey, and how long Kaylee could stay unconscious before they should worry.

By the time Wash poked his head in the door to say that Kaylee was awake again, Fred had almost gotten a grip on herself. Zoe left with her husband, and Jayne sat down on the foot of the bed and studied her face. "Eat the soup," he said, and it wasn't a suggestion. She fumbled for the bowl and promptly knocked the spoon onto the floor.

"Gorramit," he muttered, picking it up and handing to her, and then holding the bowl steady as she took a shaky sip. "You two should've stopped after the third one."

"Then the whole thing would've failed," she said, hating the sniffle and wobble in her voice. "How about that whiskey, huh? I could use it."

"Don't tell Zoe," he said, producing a flask from his pocket. "Or Simon."

"Simon's probably going to kill me anyway, after what the spell did to Kaylee." She pushed the bowl away and leaned back against her pillows, closing her eyes. "It could've killed her."

"Could've killed you too. Didn't."

"Luck." She opened her eyes and stared dully at the ceiling. "If Book hadn't been there to ground the energy when Kaylee passed out, it probably would've killed everyone on the ship."

"What would the Powers That Be do then?"

"Yank somebody else out of time, send another Guide, start over again." She sat up again and glared at the bowl. Soup: a worthy adversary. "You'd better go start placing those bombs."

"Mal and Wash can do it."

"You designed them. You'd better make sure they hook them up right, or this will all have been a big waste of time and energy." She took a deep breath and forced her face into a semblance of a smile. "I'll be okay. I just need to sleep."

He studied her for a moment, then nodded and handed her the bowl. "Finish that," he said, getting to his feet. "And the water."

"Yes, sir," she said, sketching a salute with the hand holding the spoon.

He reached out and touch her hair softly, awkwardly. She tilted her head against his hand and looked up at him.

"You're gonna do this," he said, looking into her eyes. "It's gonna work. I've got a feeling."

"I hope your instincts are well-honed," she said solemnly, looking down at her soup.

"Ain't failed me yet."

She smiled at that and bumped her head against his hand. "Go help me blow some stuff up."

"Yes, ma'am." He walked out of the shuttle, and she let out a slow, shaky breath as she watched him go.

His confidence in her meant something, but not as much as he wanted it to. The fact was, they were on a collision course with zero hour, and it was too late to do anything but wait. And worry.

She gagged on the last spoonful of soup and set the bowl aside. Worrying, she could handle.  
*****  
The Hellmouth was a raw, gaping hole in space, a jagged wound. "Looks like it ought to be bleeding," Kaylee muttered, staring out the shuttle window at the slowly pulsating streak of energy. "Don't you think?"

"It is, kind of," Fred said, trying not to look directly at their target as she studied the sheet of calculations one more time. River had triple-checked them, and this was the fourth time Fred had gone over them herself, but still, they had to be perfect... "Bleeding energy."

"Not for long," Mal said with grim satisfaction, stepping away from the control panels. "Should be all set up."

"You did just what Wash said, right?" Kaylee asked, glancing at him. "Didn't try to add anything in yourself?"

"I know how to fly a shuttle, Kaylee," the captain said, trying to glare at her. It didn't take. "I followed the directions."

"Good." She looked back out the window again, her arms folded tightly across her chest. "Don't want Book and Fred to run into any trouble out there."

"No trouble," Fred said, forcing extra-bright cheer into her voice. "We're just going to go in good and close, and as those autopilots tick over, I'll press the buttons." All eyes in the shuttle went to the row of remote controls lined up on the bed. "Easy as apple pie."

"You sure you don't want anybody to stay with you?" Kaylee asked, glancing around the shuttle. "I wouldn't mind, honest..."

"No," Fred said quickly, getting to her feet and putting an arm around the mechanic's shoulders. "I want you all on Serenity and ready to make a run, just in case something goes wrong."

"But nothing's going to go wrong, right?" Mal asked, reaching out to take Kaylee's hand. Fred passed the girl over to him and stepped back to stand next to Book at the controls.

"Of course not," she said, pasting on a smile. "But better safe than sorry."

The captain studied her face for a minute, then nodded. "We'll have the engines ready for full burn," he promised, gently guiding Kaylee toward the door. "But bring my shuttle back in one piece, all right?"

"Yes, sir." She nodded. "Won't even have time to miss her."

The door sealed behind them with a hiss, and Book silently initiated the launch sequence. Fred watched him for a moment, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"I don't suppose you can tell me if this is going to work?"

"Patience, child," he murmured, steering the shuttle away from Serenity and out into the void. "What will be, will be."

She took a few more deep breaths, and when she opened her eyes again, Serenity was in full retreat away from them. She pictured the crew huddled on the bridge, watching the little shuttle scoot toward the Hellmouth. A quick glance at the radar screens showed that the autopilots in four of the empty ships were coming online, and they began drifting toward the rent in space as well.

She stared at the sheet of calculations. They were right. They had to be. The autopilots had kicked in at precisely the right times, which meant that the ships would cross the event horizon at precisely the instants she had calculated with River...which meant that if she pressed the buttons at precisely the instants she had calculated with River, the explosions would sequence correctly and the Hellmouth would collapse...

 _And if we screwed up, none of it will matter anyway._ She shifted in her seat, looking up at the bizarre scene. Empty ships adrift around a glowing slash in the fabric of reality...except for four bombs and a teeny-tiny shuttle..."This is probably close enough," she said aloud. "Park it."

"Probably?" Book said, arching an eyebrow at her even as he complied. "I thought this was all by the numbers."

She shrugged. "If it goes wrong, it won't matter if we're here, a kilometer closer, or out by Serenity. Everything in the sector will be swallowed up essentially instantly."

"You didn't mention that part to the captain." He powered down the engines, and the shuttle hovered there, held in place by the Hellmouth's own gravity. Astrophysics. If she'd had time to consider it properly, it would've been beautiful.

"He didn't need to know," she muttered, glancing at the clock, her calculations, and the remote controls. "Okay. Thirty seconds."

The first drone ship (a bit of a cheesy sci-fi designation, but no one here knew that) drifted every closer to the energy field, accelerating just as calculated. Fred remembered the awestruck moment of watching River figure that out in her head. She swallowed and picked up the first remote, holding it so she could see it and the clock together. The seconds ticked over. She pressed the button.

The ship went up in a burst of radiant light, most of which got filtered out by the windows. The screen on the panel, though, that rendered radiation in color...it went insane. No time to spare for a smile- the second ship was two seconds out, and Fred picked up another remote.

This explosion made the little shuttle wobble in its orbit, and she let out a ragged sigh as she reached for the next. The monitors were showing massive energy fluctuations in the Hellmouth. These next two ships needed to go up almost on top of each other for this to work out. She juggled both remotes in her hands, held her breath, and hit the buttons.

Two flashes of light. A shudder ran through the shuttle, or maybe it was running through the fabric of space itself. Hard to tell, and it didn't matter- Fred's eyes were fixed on the Hellmouth, which glowed brighter and seemed to tremble in place.

Technically, it vanished in a flash of dark, since with its disappearance, the light it was emitting stopped. But because of the workings of the human eye, it seemed to go up in a burst of light.  
It was _gone_.

And Fred fell to the floor of the shuttle with a scream.  
*****  
"Shuttle two, this is Serenity. Book? Fred? What's going on?" Wash's voice rang through the little space, crackling over the radio but still audibly concerned. "Are you guys okay?"

"God," Fred whispered, dragging herself back up to her knees and staring at Book, who was still seated, staring at her with eyes full of sorrowful compassion. "You knew...you knew? But you said..."

"I never actually _said_ , child," he murmured, and she closed her eyes tightly as she realized he was right. He'd always managed to dodge answering that question directly.

"Just like Cordelia," she said, shaking with helpless laughter that broke into sobs. "I died, but you gave me one more job? And you didn't even tell me about it?"

"It was Cordelia's idea, actually," he said, glancing at the speaker, where Mal's voice had replaced Wash's, demanding answers. "She was...quite insistent, that your fate was as unfair as hers, and that we owed you a chance to do make your death _mean_ something."

"She chose for me? That’s not fair.”

“She made us give you the opportunity. You chose for yourself.”

“I don't remember.” She hugged her knees close to her torso and swallowed. "Answer them already, before he has a heart attack."

Book turned away from her and spoke quietly into the radio for a moment, probably telling them that they'd been hauling a temporarily corporeal ghost around in their ship for the last month. She stared down at her hands and rocked back and forth, struggling to wrap her mind around it. _Already dead...I've been dead all along..._ "Cordy knew," she blurted. "Why didn't I know?"

"You chose not to remember," he said, setting the radio aside and resting a gentle hand on her hair. "If you knew when you got here that the stay was only temporary, you were afraid you’d hold yourself apart from the people you’d find. You knew you’d need to connect with them in order to solve the problem, so you asked to forget…”

"So I wouldn’t think instead of feel." She wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. How did it always seem to come back around to that? Thinking or feeling, clinging tight to her mind or letting go of her heart…"How much longer do I have?"

"Not long." The radio hissed again, and Fred closed her eyes tightly. She could picture them standing there on Serenity’s bridge, arguing about what they were hearing from the radio. Kaylee’s face flashed through her mind...Wash’s...Jayne’s...

"Will it hurt?" she whispered.

"No," and for some reason, she believed him. "It's simply setting things back to how they should be."

"And they'll all be there waiting for me?"

"Every one." He patted her head gently and reached for the radio again. "Say again, Serenity?"

River's voice came through the static. "Fred?"

She wiped her eyes again and took the microphone. "Yeah?"

"I tried what you told me. About writing till I heard the click." There was a muffled noise from the background. "It helps. Thank you."

"No problem," she said, staring out the window at the stars.

Another hiss, crackle, pop of static, then River's voice continued. "And thank you for making the monsters go away."

"You're welcome," Fred whispered, setting the radio on the instrument panel and stepping closer to the windows. There was something there, out in the vast stretch of blackness and stars, something only she could see. A riddle she could almost solve...

"She'll be all right," she heard Book say behind her, probably to Serenity again. "She has another path to follow, that's all."

She shivered, feeling eternity start to open up inside of her. "Oh," she said, "it's..."

And as the universe shattered into a thousand points of light, she was gone.


End file.
